Re:U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination
by MarkMc on Thursday January 19, 2017 @12:08AM
(#13433187)
"...Oracle nevertheless preferred Asian applications...at statistically significant rates."
I would be very wary about what counts as 'statistically significant'. If I flip a coin 10 times and it lands heads 10 times, is that 'statistically significant'? Not if I'm going through a jar with 1000 coins.
And splitting Oracle's workforce into 'job groups' makes it much easier to find spurious rates of discrimination. Eg. there is discrimination in the 'Professional Technical 1' group but not the 'Professional Technical 2' group...etc.
I would be very wary about what counts as 'statistically significant'. If I flip a coin 10 times and it lands heads 10 times, is that 'statistically significant'? Not if I'm going through a jar with 1000 coins.
And splitting Oracle's workforce into 'job groups' makes it much easier to find spurious rates of discrimination. Eg. there is discrimination in the 'Professional Technical 1' group but not the 'Professional Technical 2' group...etc.
(This discussion reminds me of this Dilbert cartoon: http://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25 )